Giants live to play another day as Panik hits decisive double in 13th

Nobody needs words to express the respect around baseball for the Giants once they reached the postseason. Cubs manager Joe Maddon did it Monday night by asking closer Aroldis Chapman for a six-out save to squash the Giants for good and move on. Maddon did not want a Game 4 of this Division Series.

He's got one, because the postseason cockroaches who wear the interlocking "SF" on their caps refused to say goodbye for the winter and beat the Cubs 6-5 in a 13-inning game at AT&T Park they had no business winning - or losing.

"We're hard to kill," said Madison Bumgarner, who played both villain and redeemed soul in a game that lasted 5 hours, 4 minutes, prevented a dispiriting Cubs sweep and allowed the Giants to set a major-league record by winning their 10th consecutive elimination game.

San Francisco Giants celebrate Joe Panik's game-winning double in 13th inning of 6-5 win over Chicago Cubs during Game 3 of the National League Division Series at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, October 10, 2016. less

San Francisco Giants celebrate Joe Panik's game-winning double in 13th inning of 6-5 win over Chicago Cubs during Game 3 of the National League Division Series at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, ... more

Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle

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San Francisco Giants celebrate Joe Panik's game-winning double in 13th inning of 6-5 win over Chicago Cubs during Game 3 of the National League Division Series at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, October 10, 2016. less

San Francisco Giants celebrate Joe Panik's game-winning double in 13th inning of 6-5 win over Chicago Cubs during Game 3 of the National League Division Series at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, ... more

Panik was mobbed between second and third base after his fourth hit of the series, and second double.

"I think that ball hung up a little longer than I wanted it to," Panik said. "I knew I hit it well, but it felt like forever for that thing to get off the wall."

Like any 13-inning game, one big hit could not begin to tell the story.

The Giants won after Sergio Romo allowed a two-run homer in the ninth to Kris Bryant to blow a 5-3 lead. Bryant homered after the Giants scored three in the eighth off left-handed fortress Aroldis Chapman to overcome a 3-2 deficit, with closer-killer Conor Gillaspie playing savior again when he hit a two-run triple on a 101-mph fastball.

All that happened long after Cubs starter Jake Arrieta stunned 43,571 ticket-holders - those rooting for and against him - by hitting a three-run homer in the second inning off Bumgarner, which ended the big fella's shutout streaks in postseason games and elimination games at 24 innings apiece.

"That sure would have been a bad way to go home," Bumgarner said.

And given how impotent the Giants offense had been against Cubs pitching in the series, scoring twice in the first 20 innings, the end of the Giants' season and their run of even-year championships seemed the most likely outcome.

Denard Span led a comeback that screwed up the script. The now-platooned center fielder hit a one-out triple in the third and a one-out double in the fifth, both off Arrieta, and scored both times to close Chicago's lead to 3-2. Buster Posey and Brandon Belt got the RBIs with a single and sacrifice fly.

The rest of the story was the Giants' pitching, which held the Cubs' combustible offense to two runs over the final 10 innings -- the Bryant homer off Romo.

Two of the pitchers who helped save the Giants were the ones who gave up the runs.

Bumgarner overcame the jolt of Arrieta's homer, stranded two more runners in the second then got the Giants through 101 pitches and five innings. Manager Bruce Bochy called that "one of the guttiest, or guttiest, performances I've seen."

Romo got six outs after the Bryant homer to get the Giants through the 10th.

Bochy showed faith in two pitchers who have six World Series rings between them - the biggest in the room and the smallest -- and he was rewarded.

"We're big-leaguers. This is the playoffs," Romo said after what could have been his final game with the Giants had they lost.

"Everybody on the roster, if they're active or not, we all have faith in everybody. I don't think he did anything different today in the moves that he made. He just demonstrated the confidence he has in us. He just reassured us he knows we can get it done. Today there were some bumps, but we lived to fight another day and we'll do it again tomorrow."

The roster of shutdown pitchers needs to be read.

Rookie Derek Law did not allow a hit in the sixth or seventh innings. He celebrated a strikeout of Dexter Fowler to end the sixth like had just won the lottery.

Hunter Strickland added a shutout eighth. After Romo's perfect 10th, which included two strikeouts, Will Smith worked the 11th and rookie Ty Blach the 12th and 13th to get the win.

And what about Gillaspie, who has provided big hit after big hit and twice saved the Giants' season just since Wednesday.

With the Giants down 3-2, Brandon Belt singled off Travis Wood to start the eighth. Hector Rondon walked Posey, who already had three hits.

Maddon then drew his closer card and called on Chapman, whom the Giants wanted to acquire in July before the Yankees traded him to the Cubs. Just once had Chapman secured a six-out save, in 2013. It is not his forte. He hates pitching more than one inning.

Chapman struck out Pence before Gillaspie came to bat. The third baseman fouled back a 100-mph heater then got another at 101. He crushed it into the Triples Alley and sent AT&T Park into pandemonium when the gave the Giants the their first lead of the series. Crawford's RBI single off Chapman extended the lead to 5-3.

One such hit by Gillaspie in a postseason is asking a lot, but he beat Chapman after he hit a three-run homer in the wild-card game off Mets closer Jeurys Familia to break a scoreless tie in the ninth.

"Unbelievable," Belt said. "I think I use the word 'unbelievable' way too much, but that truly was unbelievable."

Many hours before Panik delivered the Giants their eighth walkoff hit of the year, Bochy assembled his players in the clubhouse for a chat. He earlier had joked he was going to play the 'Rocky' theme.

Instead, he spoke softly.

"He was pretty calm," Belt said. "He said, 'Let's find away to win this game today.' That was the message. He conveyed his confidence in us, which felt good."

Neither Bochy nor his troops would ever admit it, but doubt had to creep into their thoughts after Arrieta hit the first homer that Bumgarner has ever allowed a pitcher and gave the Cubs a 3-0 lead.

At that moment, Cubs pitchers had more RBIs in the series than the entire Giants team, 6-2.

But the doubt surely started to melt as the Giants chipped away at that 3-0 deficit, Span leading the way.

By the time the game ended, not long before midnight, and the Giants set a franchise mark with their longest walkoff win in the postseason, Bochy knew he had witnessed what he has seen many times in October since 2010.